GIY And Energia Want To ‘Get Ireland Growing’ With €75,000 Fund

GIY in partnership with Energia announce ‘Energia Get Ireland Growing’ a €75,000 pool of funding available to enable food growing by community and voluntary organisations all across Ireland including Northern Ireland. The application period is open from today until the 19th of January, 2018.

The ‘Get Ireland Growing’ initiative has to date supported almost 500 community food growing projects, positively impacting over 120,000 people. €340,000 has been awarded to groups over the last five years and this was distributed to projects right across the country.

Karen O’Donohoe GIY Community Manager, Amy O’Shaughnessy Energia Sponsorship Manager and Saoirse Harvey age 4 and Nathan Cullen-Delsol age 3 at the launch of the ‘Energia Get Ireland Growing’ fund. GIY and Energia have teamed up to offer €75,000 to community groups who have from today until 19th January to apply for a share of the fund, aimed at enabling community food growing projects. Applications are being accepted via giy.ie

In 2018, the Energia Get Ireland Growing Fund will be split across three categories ‘Sow’, ‘Grow’ and ‘Harvest’ with awards ranging from €500 to €2,000. The big news this year is that one very special group will receive a massive €5,000 grant for their project. Together GIY and Energia will support at least 85 community food growing groups in 2018.

The funding pool is now open to any community group, school, NGO or Not for Profit, community garden or allotment group, GIY group, hospital, crèche, direct provision centre, men’s shed or any group. The projects should all have an element of outreach, promotion and inclusivity and should have some plan to encourage more people to grow their own food. The deadline for applications is the 19th January and applications can be made online via GIY.ie.

Commenting at the launch of the €75,000 fund, Karen O’ Donohoe, Campaign Patron and GIY Head of Community development said, “It is an absolute privilege to be able to launch this fund with Energia. Here at GIY, it is our mission to get as many people regardless of location, age or means learning about and growing their own food and the provision of this funding is invaluable in achieving this goal. Through this application process we come across the most inspiring ideas, and being able to make those ideas a reality is incredible; we’re really excited to see the creative concepts arrive into us from the 32 counties again this year.”

Amy O’Shaughnessy Energia Sponsorship Manager said, “We’re thrilled to launch Energia Get Ireland Growing for a second year. We had a phenomenal response to this initiative last year. The passion and dedication of people across the country who are igniting positive change in their communities is truly inspiring. At Energia we are committed to promoting sustainable living and helping families and communities to reduce their carbon footprint, so we’re really delighted to support this wonderful initiative with GIY.”

The successful applicants will be celebrated at a gala event which will be held at the home of GIY, GROW HQ in Waterford, in March 2018.

GIY also provides supports and opportunities for knowledge exchange between the projects, helping the best ideas to be shared. All the projects remain part of the GIY network in the long term, giving them access to other GIY resources and additional groups and projects, creating a long-term legacy.

Some of the flagship projects who received funding and supports from the Get Ireland Growing fund over the last number of years include, a grow garden for the Irish Wheelchair Association Centre, the provision of tools and seeds for the Horticulture course at the Ballymun Adult Read and Write Scheme, project funding for an inner city urban food growing project in Cork city with Mad About Cork, a food growing project for Galway Simon’s Residential Service ‘Tuí Bhrian’ in Galway City, a food growing initiave in a young persons probation centre in Cork; a vegetable garden for asylum seekers in Clonakilty, Co Cork, a horticultural project for unemployed men in Waterford that supplies salads to restaurants and a community garden to reduce isolation on Inishbofin island to name but a few.

For further details and to submit an application for ‘Energia Get Ireland Growing’ 2018 see GIY.ie